Around 5 years ago John Sherck started a peanut project which The Buffalo Seed Company has kept alive. Has anyone tried it, and if so have they detected any crossing beyond the initial four varieties? I finally ordered a packet. From what John says on Facebook peanuts might be a really important oil crop for home growers interested in growing their own caloric staples.
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I started growing peanuts at about that same time. I chose my original varieties, like most everything else based on shorter DTM. I don’t remember the names but for example I did not include varieties described much over 100 days. I haven’t seen any solid evidence of crossing, even though I’m careful to make sure dis-like kinds are side by side in the patch. When fairly large vines were eaten to the ground by rabbits but regrew and finished making a harvest, I got to thinking I might get by with longer season varieties too. I might order a pack of those to add in to mine.
I’m not sure the mounding is necessary. Maybe it depends on the soil condition but mine seem to do OK even without much attention to that. They are easy to grow, barring the rabbits and have the largest and most abundant nitrogen nodules I’ve ever seen. Plus, they are easy to dry and store without any preservation treatments. I’ve worried that they might get weevils or something that could ruin them is storage but so far, I haven’t seen that. If it happens, I start freezing them for a week or so.
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Here is some of what is out there:
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
Carolina African Runner
Carwile’s Virginia
Fastigiata Pin Striped
Jungle Striped, Sundance Striped
Schronce’s Deep Black Peanut
Tennessee Red Valencia
J and L Gardens
La Mesilla Red Peanut
The Buffalo Seed Company
Sherck Composite (Thai, Fastigiata Pin Stripe, Tennessee Red Valencia, and Black)
Bolivian Landrace
Zambian Landrace
Uruguayan Landrace
Bolivian Escapee
Pintado de Chiquitos
The Seed Saver’s Exchange (The Exchange itself not the store)
Argentinian White Valencia
Fastigiata Pin-Striped
Negrito Mandivi
Pre-Civil War
Purple Skin
Tennessee Red
Transkutuku
Amazon.com
Tennessee Red
Jumbo Virginia
Chuxay Garden
Wakefield Virginia
Early Spanish
Champ
Spanish
Black Brown
Gurney’s
Wynne Virginia
Bailey II
I got excited last night and bought a packet of Sherck’s Composite and a packet of La Mesilla Red. That was about $15 and I’m not sure I want to get any deeper into peanut growing than that without some success first. Would be cool if we could get enough folks interested to get a really exciting composite going as a group. They are supposed to have at least something like 1.8% outcrossing though they probably will cross better in some gardens than others. Also, just the right peanut might have a higher rate of outcrossing- some do apparently.
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Wow, I didn’t know there were so many available, thanks!
Yea, they are a little bit pricey to get started with. I don’t have enough in reserve right now or I would send you some. I don’t think you can keep them for a long time like lots of seeds, germination goes down noticeably after just two years. I’m going to plant a nice sized patch this year and probably add in a new variety or two. Hopefully I’ll have plenty to eat, plant and share this year.
In my memory folks in my area did not grow peanuts, I always thought of them as a southern thing, but they do well here, as do cowpeas, okra and sweet potatoes. I suspect that these things probably always would have grown fine here but other things like common beans and potatoes grew fine so why bother. Now though, the more traditional things don’t grow as well as they once did, especially potatoes.
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Happy to trade colors of peanut in the fall. I’m curious out of 25 seeds how many of the original plus any crosses I’ll get from Sherck’s composite. Assuming they come in shell they’ll be interesting to shell out and plant to see. Its such a small sample size it would be interesting to compare notes with other folks growing out Sherk’s composite. Its basically an experiment in adaptive gardening that has been running for a few years and might already be paying dividends. Though a few hundred seeds would perhaps be more interesting to evaluate. Your experiment in it- the same thing Reed. Interesting you’ve kept it going this long.
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The above is an interesting variety available from Reimer Seeds. 130 DTM which I fear is far too long for here.
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This is frustrating because Little August and Northern Hardy Valencia are both out of stock.
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It’ll be interesting to see how yall do. I got some Sherck composit peanuts but wasn’t able to grow them yet.
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My Sherck Composite peanuts came. They are shelled so there are something like 17 Tennessee red Valencia, six black, and two fastigiata. The light brown Thai peanut was missing in my packet. I’m not sure if there is any sign of crossing or not. The red ones do have narrow stripes and I am not sure if they should. I may take pains to label the individual varieties in the row.
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